New stories for 2008/03/06


Earth and Moon, As Seen From Mars
This picture was released a couple of days ago, but since it's so special, it deserves a post on Universe Today. And besides, everyone secretly likes to look at pictures of themselves. And this is a picture of us: it's the Earth and the moon, as seen from Mars. From the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, to be exact, and it was taken by the HiRISE Instrument on board, the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment. That's the same camera that gave us the images of the avalanche on Mars, so the capabilities of this instrument are quite spectacular. This image was snapped back in October 2007, from a distance of 142 million kilometers, and if you look closely, you can make out a few features on Earth.

Do Advanced Civilizations Communicate with Neutrinos?


It's one of the biggest questions in all humanity: are we alone in the Universe? Either way, the answer is significant. And so, scientists are searching for intelligence out there. Huge arrays of radio telescopes, like the Allen Array scan the skies for radio broadcasts. And researchers have also proposed that aliens might be using lasers to communicate with us. A Russian researcher is proposing another way that aliens might be communicating with us - with neutrinos.
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That Dark Stuff, Matter and Energy

Being a very hands-on-type person, I have a hard time wrapping my brain around the concepts of dark energy and dark matter. These are invisible, hypothetical stuffs that cosmologists tell us make up a combined 96% of the universe. These ubiquitous substances are unlike anything we’re familiar with. They don’t emit or reflect enough electromagnetic radiation to be detected directly, but their presence is inferred by the gravitational effect they have on everything we can see. So, scientists are trying to determine if dark energy and dark matter are really there, and if so, what they’re made of. A couple of studies have come out recently dealing with dark energy and dark matter. One study released says that what we think might be dark energy may only be tiny whiskers of carbon materials, formed in the early days of the universe. And a new experiment tried to determine if dark matter is made of particles called axions.
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Podcast: What is the Shape of the Universe?

Some of the biggest questions in the universe depend on its shape. Is it curved? Is it flat? Is it open? Those may not make that much sense to you, but in fact it’s very important for astronomers. So which is it? How do we know? How did we figure it out? Why does it matter?

Click here to download the episode

What is the shape of the Universe? - Show notes and transcript

Or subscribe to: astronomycast.com/podcast.xml with your podcatching software.


Measure Light Pollution and Help Save Our Dark Skies


It's a stunning photo… And one we all recognize. At this point in time, more than half of the Earth's population lives in or near a city and the results shine clearly from space. The crime is not energy consumption, over-population or even global warming. It's the loss of one of our greatest natural resources… The starry night sky.
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from universetoday.com